


Basic Instinct

by venerate



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Werewolves, Creeper Peter, Hurt Stiles, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mental Institutions, POV Derek Hale, Stiles Stilinski Speaks Polish
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-09
Updated: 2015-12-07
Packaged: 2018-04-25 13:49:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4962988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/venerate/pseuds/venerate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eichen House is nothing new to Derek Hale. </p><p>Although he is not allowed into the patients’ rooms or the staff room, he knows every lumpy armchair in the waiting room and every creaky chair in the visitation room on the fourth floor. He knows not to expect too much from the free coffee, often burnt at the bottom of the pot, and that the cinnamon rolls and cookies they offer for visitors are most likely to be gone five minutes after they have been put on the tables.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Eichen House

* * *

 

Eichen House is nothing new to Derek Hale. Although he is not allowed into the patients’ rooms or the staff room, he knows every lumpy armchair in the waiting room and every creaky chair in the visitation room on the fourth floor. He knows not to expect too much from the free coffee, often burnt at the bottom of the pot, and that the cinnamon rolls and cookies they offer for visitors are most likely to be gone five minutes after they have been put on the tables.

He knows the name of almost every orderly, from the nice ones to the more rough ones – like Brunski – and the girl behind the reception desk, just here for a summer job, and Miss Morrell. Derek likes to think that Morrell is one of the nice, good and gentle attendants at Eichen House, but he can’t really be sure. She always looks at him with something weird in her eyes, something all-knowing. It creeps him out.

So when Derek waits for his uncle to be brought up to the fourth floor, staring out through the old windows and trying not to be bothered by the slowly dying plants obscuring his view, he is not taken by surprise when someone throws a fit out in the corridors. It is far from uncommon to hear someone scream their throat dry, scream and cry until there is nothing left but broken and helpless sobs as the orderlies inject some kind of calming drug into their system.

This voice is new, though, young and hysteric. Derek knows that Eichen is mostly filled with elderly suffering from dementia, or people with schizophrenia, only the occasional teen with substance problems here. Derek knows that there is another institution, more modern and less strict, just a few hours from Beacon Hills, which focuses on teens and young adults.

The screaming comes to a halt when someone runs down the hall, and Derek can’t help but lean back in his chair to see what the commotion is all about. He is surprised to see the Sheriff there, embracing someone wearing the same clothing as the other patients.

“Mr. Hale! How nice to see you again. Do you want me to make some more coffee?”

Derek looks up to see one of the young orderlies coming up to him, wheeling his uncle in front of her. He nods his hello, and makes room for his uncle’s wheel chair by the table.

“I’ll make you some more coffee, okay? I’ll be right back,” she smiles and disappears into the adjacent kitchen.

Peter looks like he always does, pale and stiff, his skin damaged on one side of his face. The scars of the fire are most likely permanent, and so is his uncle’s state of mind. His eyes are open, but never seem to really blink or take in what is around him. He looks somewhat thinner than Derek’s last visit. It makes his stomach turn.

There is a fat, square television in the corner, a small crack right through it, but it is turned on, blurring out the stifling silence that follows Peter’s presence. Some kind of cooking show has one of the resident’s attention, a wrinkly old lady that keeps throwing him dirty looks over her shoulder. He knows that her name is Wilma, and that her dirty looks and whispered curses are far from an actual threat. She is glued to the television every single time Derek comes to visit his uncle.

The floor creaks when the orderly comes back, carrying cups and a pot of steaming coffee. “Here you go,” she says and puts a cup each in front of them both, pouring burnt coffee into three cups before heading over with one of them to Wilma.

Wilma practically attacks the cup, making some of the coffee splash onto her lap. She doesn’t seem to care, just takes a big gulp of it as if it isn’t steaming hot. The young orderly just sits down next to her, ready to take the cup when Wilma has gulped down it all, should she decide to throw the empty cup at the television again.

They sit in silence for a long time, Derek taking small sips of the nasty coffee. Peter doesn’t seem to recognize his nephew nor that a cup of coffee is sitting right in front of him. It doesn’t bother Derek as much as it did a few years ago, now it all seems to be a part of his routine. The doctors say that Peter’s physical health is as good as it is ever going to be, that it is mental condition stopping his progress.

Derek thinks that if he too had been seconds away from burning to death, hearing his entire family cry for help and wail in pain, he wouldn’t be too keen on returning to the real world any time soon.

When his coffee is finished, Peter’s still untouched; he stands up to take his uncle back to his room.

The rooms on the third floor are not too bad, if a little cold and bare. He sits his uncle by the window, turns on the old radio on the night stand and takes his time to water the plants. He brought some new linen, which he puts on the bed. They are marked with a black sharpie, the way children’s clothes are, but Derek doesn’t really trust the attendants with the expensive sheets – it is far from unusual for the patients’ personal clothes to get mixed up in laundry.

He takes his uncle’s hand, just for a second, before murmuring a goodbye and disappearing. Just like any other Sunday, another thing to check off his to do-list, before the new week starts.

He rides home in silence, his mind loud enough. He tries to figure out how he is going to be able to visit his uncle next week, with the new work project coming in on Friday. Derek isn’t too proud to admit that working over the next weekend brings a feeling of relief rather than annoyance.

He knows that his sisters are going to scoff at him for it, for accepting to work over the weekend when he doesn’t really have to. He has heard that lecture too many times, both Cora and Laura shaking their heads and urging him to go out, get a life, to move the fuck on.

When he arrives at his loft, he falls into his regular Sunday routine. He gets all of his cleaning supplies, the expensive sprays and foams and gels that all smell of sweet, fake lemon and his sponges and mops. It’s a big apartment, and it gets way too dusty for Derek’s liking.  

It takes him about an hour to go through all the rooms, making sure the dust is removed and the tables and window sills are shining. He vacuums, then methodically scrubs the hardwood floors with great care. It is almost therapeutic, with nothing littering or standing in the way as he cleans in rigid order from top to floor.

Cora and Laura tease him when they visit, both impressed and worried about his obsessive cleaning. He isn’t actually sure that it could classify as obsessive, as much as it is a thing he just do in lack of better things to occupy himself with. Either way, it sounds quite pathetic, so he doesn’t bother defending himself to his sisters.

The loft is rather bare, just the necessary furniture and a few chosen oriental rugs. He isn’t too big on inviting people over, just his sisters and the occasional time he has brought his uncle over from Eichen house for a weekend. His only work friends are a few years younger than him, still fascinated with the club scene and busy with whatever it is that young adults do.

He did accompany them once, to a gay club called Jungle, but he didn’t like it. Expensive drinks with off-brand spirits and watery beer, hyperactive teenagers and bad music were all that it had to offer.

When the loft is clean and in order, Derek takes a quick shower and changes the bed sheets before stepping out on the balcony for a while. The balcony is just as plain as the rest of the loft, just a small table and two chairs, a pot of red geranium. He takes a seat, reaching for the hidden package of cigarettes behind the flower pot. He lights one, takes a deep drag and feels as his entire body relaxes.

He rarely smokes, sometimes while drunk and sometimes during stressful times at work. Always after visiting Eichen house. 

* * *

The week goes by without a hitch. He goes for a jog each morning, eats oatmeal porridge, works at the office downtown for a few hours, then heads home for dinner before working a few more hours at home. Sometimes he swings by the gym down the block before dinner. He eats broccoli and salmon, or broccoli and chicken, tries to make chickpea soup but fails and goes to bed hungry on Thursday.

On Friday he picks up a few boxes of sodium-packed food at the Thai restaurant next to his gym, goes home and waits for the work commission to pop up in his email. He eats in silence by his computer in his small home office, reads some news online and tries not to think of Isaac Lahey, Erica Reyes and Vernon Boyd whom all offered him to join them for dinner downtown. He thinks that he might have liked that, just to be near someone in some kind of way. It has been quite some time since he was social with someone besides his uncle, sisters or fleetingly with his work colleagues.

When the phone rings, shrill and sudden, Derek almost flies out of his chair. He spills some noodles on his newly washed jeans. He glares at the telephone for a second, wonder who would call him on his landline phone at a Friday evening. When he picks it up, grunting his hello, the nervous cold in his stomach turns to ice.

“Hello, this is Marin Morrell from Eichen house.”

“Yes?” He can’t help but dread the worst.

“I have some good news, and some bad news, about your uncle.”

He takes a deep breath in an attempt to calm down, and he walks with long steps through the loft, to the balcony. “Wait a second,” he tells her as he opens the door with a little bit of struggle, practically ripping the cigarette package open so that they spill all over the floor. He lights one before telling her to go on.

“Well, Mr. Hale… The good news is that your uncle is more alert than ever. He both talked and tried to stand up about an hour ago.”

Derek can feel the relief wash over him. He isn’t sure that he could have handled another funeral.

“The bad news?” he asks her.

“In his attempt to get up, he sprained his wrist. Do you think that you can come by tomorrow morning to sign some of the insurance papers?”

“Insurance papers? Does he need medical care?”

“No, not really...” Morrell hesitates for a second, and Derek flings the barely touched cigarette over the railing.

“Tell me.”

“Peter tried to attack one of our other patients.”

 

 

 


	2. Alive

Eichen house is noisier on Saturdays. Derek can’t tell if it is a regular occurrence, that there are more visitors or that the corridors seem more busy with pale skin and pajamas-like outfits, but there is certainly not the same kind of commotion around Sunday afternoons. Laura seems to notice this too, even though her visits are far from as often as once a week.

They wait in the waiting room by the reception desk, the young girl telling them that Miss Morrell wants to have a word with them before seeing Mr. Hale and that she will be with them in just a moment.

Laura leans closer, “Is that Sheriff Stilinski?”

Derek nods, and knows that she immediately thinks back to the time when the Sheriff was a deputy, talking to them with a low voice and ready with strong embraces when he had to deliver the horrible news of a fire. He has aged since, wrinkles from worry between his brows and deep lines from laughter around his mouth. He isn’t wearing his uniform as he stalks to the reception desk to sign in.

“Do you see him here a lot?” Laura asks, voice not more than a whisper.

Derek shakes his head. He can tell that his sister is nervous, just as much on the edge as he is. They have no idea what to expect, what to say or do. So Derek just stares at one of the wooden floorboards, the deep ridges from chairs and shoes somewhat grounding as he attempts to count them.

Laura gives him a nudge with her very sharp elbow after a while, signaling Miss Morrell’s arrival. Marin Morrell is young, beautiful and probably all-knowing. She could be some kind of wonder genius, Derek thinks. She is too calm, too composed and too understanding. Derek thinks that she might be the only one who actually wants to improve Eichen house, the one who orders the rest of the staff to water the plants and make sure the cleaners do their job.

“I’m glad that you could make it on such short notice,” she says and gestures for them to follow her.

Laura keeps close, not used to the patients in the same way Derek is. He knows a few of them by name, has talked to a few of the regular visitors as well; just polite, short conversations, but it gives the patients less of a creepy vibe, when he knows who they are.

His sister squeezes his arm when they pass Eric, a young man with motoric problems, whom always seems to want to throw himself at everyone. Not out of aggression, Derek knows, but for something to balance on as he moves down the halls in attempts to gain his strength back.

They are taken to Morrell’s office, a big room with tall windows facing the courtyard. Bookshelves cover the walls, filled with dusty literature and newer pocket books. There is one dedicated to binders in a magnitude of colors, and Miss Morrell takes a blue one with neatly scrawled numbers on it before sitting down. She gestures for them to sit down in the faux-leather armchairs.

She is careful to not let them peak at the crisp, computer-written papers that are obviously about their uncle. She clears her throat, manicured nails tapping the desk as she searches for something special. She stops in the far back of the binder, unhooking a few official-looking forms and handing them over to the Hale siblings.

“What’s this?” Laura asks, staring at what appears to be hospital bills for someone with an awfully long, complicated first name. She hands it to her brother, looking up at Morrell.

“Yesterday, there was an… accident, of sorts, in the cafeteria. Mr. Hale has been present at every dinner the last two weeks, without fail, because we thought that the stimuli of other people around him would do some good.”

“What happened? Did Peter do this?” Derek asks, feeling skeptical.

Laura snatches the report from Derek, staring at it as if written in a foreign language. It graphically explains the events of their uncle suddenly croaking out a “shut up” and trying to get out of his wheelchair, in an attempt to lounge himself at another patient, and actually managing to do some damage.

“Yes,” Morrell confirms. “Not to be crude, but this is a very impressive feat from someone whom has been catatonic for years.”

“Is Peter okay? Is this, uh, whatshisname okay?” Laura asks, not bothering to attempt to pronounce the mile-long name. They both recognize the surname, but that has to be a crazy coincidence. As far as they both know, Sheriff Stilinski’s boy is some kind of wonder child with a membership in Mensa. It had been all over the local newspapers.

“They are both okay, just a few cuts and bruises from their fall. Peter is impatient to start physiotherapy, and more than eager to make progress.”

“I want to see Uncle Peter now,” Laura says, sounding as uneasy as Derek feels. Morrell nods understandingly, all-knowingly, and leads them to their uncle.

When they reach the third floor, leaving the elevator that always reeks of sweat and urine, Laura relaxes. Peter’s door is open, a vague sound coming from the radio playing this week’s top ten.

Peter looks up when they enter his small room. He is still in his wheelchair, but his eyes are more alert and he keeps moving his stiff fingers to the music. He attempts a smile, but it looks forced and angry.

Laura opts for an awkward hug, and Derek is pretty sure that he can hear her inhale deeply in a way that suggests that she wants to cry.

“I will leave you alone for a while,” Miss Morrell tells them, “I’ll be right down the hall.”

“My, haven’t you grown up?” Peter says, voice a little raspy, and gestures for them to sit on his bed. It’s made with the new, expensive linen that Derek brought.

“Uncle Peter, what happened?” Laura turns off the radio, worry written over her face.

Peter shakes his head at this. “I remember every single moment of my years as… I was simply frozen, never brain-dead.” He scoffs at this, as if the thought of himself as ‘brain-dead’ should be considered impossible, a foolish idea. “It seems that it would take a brat – the most annoying one I have ever encountered – to snap me out of it. I couldn’t take his voice anymore, he just wouldn’t _shut up_.”

Derek nods. It does sound plausible. Peter always did have a fragile patience, even more so around obnoxious people.

“They tell me that I will walk again, within time. I have to admit that I am fueled by the thought of my healthy, alive niece and nephew. Enough about me; tell me what you have been up to.”

Laura tells their uncle that she has been out of town a lot, and that Cora is on the move constantly in one of those teenage-voyages to find her own identity. Derek explains his job at a bureau for graphic design briefly, careful not to mention too much. He knows that Peter will figure out too much; and feel disappointed that his nephew is a loser with no life.

Peter asks them questions, is careful to make sure he gets everything right. He gives them opinions, in the way their uncle always has done – in a rough, teasing way that suggests that they are mere children and should listen to his magnificent advice. It feels easy to fall into their old roles, even if they talk about stupid things, about things you would tell a distant relative.

When lunch time falls around, when they are about to part separate ways and an orderly comes to help Peter to the cafeteria, he tells them to book a hairdresser to come by as soon as possible, clearly not satisfied with the work of the current hairdresser that came by regularly.

“It is much too long,” he tells them as he is rolled into the elevator. He says goodbye with a little wave as the doors close.

Laura and Derek takes the stairs, silent all the way down. Neither speaks as they reach their cars on the lot, just curt nods in goodbye, both too rumpled and confused to actually care.

He gets a text message from Laura when he comes home, telling him that they should visit tomorrow as well, and that she will call Cora and force her to join them.

Falling down on his bed, thinking about the project waiting in his tiny office, Derek can’t help but let out a frustrated groan. He is happy, more than glad to have his uncle back, but there is undoubtedly a tingle of uneasiness in his body. He can’t tell why, can’t really explain any of his feelings, so he gets back to his work.

* * *

Derek wakes up ten minutes past six, the next morning, with an ache in his neck and stiffness in his back that only comes after pulling an all-nighter by his computer. Nevertheless, he gets up for a hot shower and some comfortable track pants and a ratty t-shirt. He feels better almost instantly.

He takes his time to make blueberry oatmeal, drinks half a pot of coffee and reads the local news on his cellphone. Nothing interesting; someone winning a smaller fortune on the lottery, something about the hospital seeing an increase of hip fractures during all the rain last week – and Derek isn’t sure why he keeps reading this paper. Every morning, and he is never interested in the news nor does he find the journalistic work that brilliant (or remotely good).

It has to be compulsory, he thinks. Maybe it is some kind of self-destruction. Maybe he hopes that he can bore himself to death, to escape his uneventful life.

He wonders if that is why he feels such an unease at his uncle’s ‘awakening’; it could be considered a break in his routine, something new and slightly foreign, and the more he thinks about it, it makes more and more sense. It hurts a little to admit it, but he isn’t sure how he became such a square, boring kind of person.

So he buries himself in work.

He takes short breaks for smoking and making some more coffee, takes a longer pause by lunch to change into proper clothing and eat an avocado sandwich. After chugging some water, he texts Laura to see what time they should meet up at Eichen house. He gets a reply almost instantly, saying that she had called Miss Morrell and Peter had taken himself out in physiotherapy and could not take any visitors today.

He gets another text two minutes later, this time from Cora, saying that she and Laura is coming over with dinner later.

He starts cleaning instantly, vacuuming and dusting, doing the dishes and cleaning the bathroom. He hides the cigarettes in his nightstand, makes his bed, goes with the trash and gets the tent bed from his storage in the basement.

When his sisters arrive, with pizza and beer and two bottles of red wine, Derek is grateful. Cora flops down in the armchair with a beer immediately, turning on the TV and shamelessly lets Derek and Laura to prep the pizza.

Laura opens the wine bottle and sets the small dinner table with plates and wine glasses. Derek cuts the pizza in slices, makes a small tomato-cucumber-garlic salad and grunts for Cora to get her ass to the kitchen.

It’s nice.

 After a few glasses of wine and slices of pizza in silence, Cora is the one to get up and leave the table first – leaving her plate, but refilling her glass and taking it with her – and Laura follows suit. She refills both her own and Derek’s glasses, generously, motioning for him to follow their little sister while she starts with the dishes. Derek does as he is ordered, following Cora out on the balcony.

She hands him a package of menthol Marlboro, snorting when he pretends not to want one. “I can see the ashtray, I’m not dumb,” she says as he accepts one.

Derek sighs, wondering how he could forget to hide the obvious evidence of his bad habit. They stand in silence for a while; Cora making this weird, exaggerated sound as she exhales the smoke. Her teeth are a little red from the wine, and Derek suspects that his looks the same.

“What was he like?” Cora asks. She doesn’t look at him, for which Derek is kind of glad. He isn’t sure of how he feels about all this, or how his sisters feel. Everything is all too strange and new, not necessarily bad, but definitely stress-inducing.

“Like Peter,” Derek finally answers.

Cora snorts again, jerking a little too harsh with her arms to gesture her annoyance and spilling both ash and wine on her socks. “That’s what Laura said too.”

Derek thinks that, maybe, Cora doesn’t really remember what Peter was like before the fire and before his apathetic condition. That might not be a completely bad thing, either. To be honest, Derek isn’t sure that his memories of their uncle are fully true – it has been way too long for him to tell. He takes a drag of the cigarette, the menthol feeling strange in his throat.

“He seemed happy. Kind of restless,” Derek elaborates.

“Yeah, who wouldn’t be,” Cora mutters.

When they go back inside, toes cold from not wearing shoes, Laura has done the dishes and put the beer in the fridge. The remaining bottle of red wine waits for them on the coffee table, along with a DVD. She has even lit a few candles that Derek didn’t know that he had. It looks cozy, and warm, and Laura lifts on the blanket she is under to offer room for Cora there. Derek takes the armchair.

“It’s a documentary,” Laura says, nodding towards the television. The screen is frozen, and she lets both Cora and Derek read on the backside of the DVD-folder before pressing play.

It takes them fifteen minutes, more or less, before they get restless and antsy. The documentary – about a man surviving a freak accident and his road back to normalcy after years in coma – is a bit too old and outdated, both boring and unsettling all at once. Laura is the one to turn it off, instead plugging in her cellphone to the AUX-cord connected to Derek’s speakers. The music is low, some kind of slow, desperate and artsy music that Derek never really understood.

“It’s Lana Del Rey,” she tells him, almost throwing her head back to get the last drops of wine out of her glass.  Derek just nods, trying to avoid the inevitable of his sisters rolling their eyes.

Cora gets up to get them each a beer, and comes back with a bottle of something that looks like urine. “Tequila,” she says. “We’re gonna get trashed.”

She hands them their beer, puts the bottle on the table and goes back to the kitchen. She comes back with regular glasses – despite the fact that Derek has these ugly NYPD-shot glasses that Laura gave him for Christmas last year – and pours them generous amounts of the hard liquor. Laura doesn’t hesitate, seemingly onboard with Cora’s plans for tonight.

She puts a fake-crystal plate on the table as well and lights a cigarette, fully serious about smoking indoors and using the small bowl that their grandmother used to put candy in as an ashtray. Derek can’t find it in him to care, the taste of red wine burning in his throat and making his head slow and heavy.

“C’mon, relax a little,” Cora says. She throws him the pack of cigarettes and a lighter.

Derek does as told, lights one for himself, then removes the taste of wine by gulping down some beer. After that follows tequila. And after that, Derek kind of disappears.

 


	3. Lovestruck

He wakes up with the taste of death in his mouth and a headache so strong it practically makes him dizzy. The world seems to move as he makes his way to his bathroom. His stomach turns, more out of hunger rather than the urge to vomit. He can hear one of his sisters moving about in the kitchen, the scent of strong coffee finally reaching him. He takes a quick shower, easing tension in his shoulders and taking some of the headache away, but he can still practically taste the bad breath in his mouth.

He dresses in sweatpants and a t-shirt, not sure if his hungover-skin can handle the inflexible texture of denim. He brings two more sweatpants with him as he makes his way to the living room. Laura is sleeping on the couch under one of his nicer blankets, almost making him want to yank it off of her in case she pukes. She looks a little pale, mouth slightly open as she snores.

“You alive?”

Derek turns around to see Cora. She is smiling, hair wet from a shower and dressed in the same clothes as she wore yesterday. She doesn’t seem hungover or tired at all, despite having been the one to chug Tequila like water.

“There’s coffee. I’m making scrambled eggs,” she tells him and gestures for him to follow.

He outright groans when he sees that his little sister has practically made a buffet for them. There is a mess in the sink with bowls and cutting boards and what not, but he can’t really bring himself to care. Not when there is breakfast.

“Ham, peppers and tomatoes in it,” she explains as she serves him a plate of scrambled eggs. She hands him a cup of coffee next, letting him settle in by the kitchen table.

This hungover-state is rare for Derek, and he has never had someone produce such an amazing breakfast for the day after.  It seems that Cora feels no qualms about using all of Derek’s food, but he is all too happy about the food to care. There is cantaloupe, bread, neatly chopped apples with cinnamon and sugar, and turkey bacon.

He digs into the scrambled eggs, wondering how to tell his sister to light that cigarette somewhere else, not under the kitchen fan and certainly not while he is eating. He finds himself not caring after a while, just like with the dishes and how he is now going to have to go grocery shopping. It must be the because of the magic that surrounds little sister, how they always get away with everything and anything, just because they are baby sisters.

“What the fuck was in that tequila.” Laura makes her way to the table, still wrapped in the blanket much like a burrito, and looking awful. Her hair is in tangles from having slept on the sofa, her cheeks pale and her eyes unable to focus. “Give me food,” she growls.

Derek can’t help but think that despite the headache and the mess and smoking indoors, this is the nicest morning he has had in a long time.

* * *

 

Two days later, Derek still finds his sisters’ dirty socks, cigarette butts and dishes from their apparent late-night munching. He has already finished his project, the client and his boss pleased despite his almost-late presentation of it. He is without much to do this week, as a compensation for his weekend workload, so he finds himself accepting the offer to join his coworkers for a few beers.

They go to a crowded pub just a few minutes from their office. Derek has never been here before, but he must admit that it is a rather nice place. Despite the music – some kind of Irish folk music, he assumes – and the chatter of people around them, it isn’t hard to hear what his colleagues talk about. Their booth is roomy, and candles are lit on the table, a few worn and ugly menu cards next to them. Anonymous, warm and good food, if he is to believe what Erica has to say about it.

They order in several plates of chili fries and nachos, several kinds of barbecue sauce on Isaac’s demand. The beer is kind of sweet and bright, and Derek has it explained to him that it’s an Indian pale ale. He guesses that this is something his sisters would scoff at him for drinking, while they keep to their Corona and Budweiser.

“Heard about your uncle,” Erica says, smiling. “Is he going to recover?”

Derek has no idea how she knows this, but he nods anyway. “In a year or so, probably,” he explains. “He’s always been stubborn, so it’ll probably be sooner than that.”

“I’m glad to hear that.”

A silence follows as their food arrives, baskets of greasy fries and sugar-packed sauces. It’s tasty and definitely something that Derek will crave again. The beer tastes even better after a couple of fries, and Derek finds himself leaning back to avoid wolfing down everything before his coworkers has any chance at it.

He scans the bar, searching for the waitress to order them another round, but comes to a halt when he sees sheriff Stilinski, dressed in a worn t-shirt and jeans. The man is sitting by the bar, fiddling with a tumbler of something amber, probably whiskey. He looks tired, shoulders slumped and eyes unmoving from his glass.

Derek isn’t sure why he suddenly finds himself standing, telling the others that he is going to order them more beer directly from the bar. He walks past a couple of youths, that the sheriff probably should be checking the ID’s of.

The bartender is busy talking with an old man, gesturing to the wall of liquors behind her and trying to describe something. Derek leans against the counter, only an arm’s reach away from the sheriff.

“Long day?” Derek’s eyebrows draw together, confused by his own question. He tries to count how many beers he’s had, but comes to the conclusion that two beers usually don’t make him approach strangers.

The sheriff looks up; eyes narrow as he tries to identify Derek. It takes him quite some time, telling that this is probably not his first glass of tonight. “You could say that…”

Derek orders another round of beers when the bartender is finished with her conversation. He is just about to take the bottles and leave, when the sheriff suddenly puts a warm hand on his shoulder.

“I’m glad to hear about your uncle. I apologize for my son’s behavior.” He makes it sound as if this is far from the first time that he has apologized on his son’s behalf. He sighs again, “I’ve tried my best to get him to apologize in person. Maybe we should all meet and discuss this?”

Derek nods, standing awkwardly with his bottles. He can hear the sheriff’s unsaid words, the hope in his voice that Derek will just let it slide and they can forget this whole ordeal. Derek isn’t sure that he can give that to the man, once he has offered this. Peter is a grudge-holder of epic proportions, and he thinks that it will be safer for every person in Eichen house if Peter and the Stilinski boy make peace.

“I’ll be there on Sunday,” he says. “Before lunch.”

The sheriff nods, holding his drink up in a tiny and shaky salute and dismissing Derek.

He hurries back to his table, setting down the beers in front of his work friends, and slumping down. That is enough of confrontation and conversation to last him a decade, but now he is stuck with his colleagues for at least another beer.

“Is that the sheriff?” Erica asks him, her eyes stuck on the tired silhouette by the bar.

“Yes.”

“What does he want with you?” Isaac asks, looking slightly wary.

Derek just shrugs, not one for spreading gossip. It does nothing to satisfy their curiosity, but Derek is silent long enough for them to drop it, and continue discussing this week’s projects and deadlines. Derek doesn’t really listen.

* * *

 

Sunday arrives quickly enough. The week is uneventful, just work and hitting the gym and going to get groceries. He eats, works and goes for runs in the forest. He gets daily calls from his uncle’s physiotherapist about his miraculous progress, and talks to Miss Morrell on two occasions, about Peter’s memory and mental health progress. They all sound impressed by Peter, but Derek has known his uncle for his entire life. He knows that if anyone could push himself like this, it would be Peter.

On the familiar drive to Eichen house, he listens to the radio. Nothing big really happens in Beacon Hills, just the occasional attempted-robbery or attempted-somethings, which the police are always quick to shut down. The weather forecast is the usual autumn temperature, the usual amount of sun versus rain. Nothing out of the ordinary, yet Derek feels as if this meeting will be a horrendous affair.

Marin Morrell is waiting for him in the entrance, standing by the reception desk with two thick manila folders in a tight grip. She looks pristine and classy, as always, with an unreadable smile on her face.

She greets him with a handshake and tells him to follow her. They make their way to the visitor’s room. Wilma is sitting by the TV, watching some kind of cooking show. One of the tables is set up with coffee cups, a plate of cookies and a fresh bouquet of flowers. Derek suspects that this is Morrell’s work, trying to set the mood and make it as comfortable as possible for such an awkward type of meeting.

“Sheriff Stilinski and his son will be here any minute. I’ll make some coffee,” Miss Morrell tells him and disappears into the tiny adjacent kitchen. As she is preparing coffee, Peter is helped into the room by one of the younger orderlies, still in his wheelchair.

“Derek,” Peter greets as he is helped to sit in the chair next to his nephew. “I’m glad to have you here.”

Somehow, Derek suspects that Peter would have liked to be left alone. Like this, it feels too much like a parent-teacher conference where Peter and the Stilinski-boy have been causing too much ruckus in the classroom. It is much more awkward than Derek had imagined.

“How are my nieces doing?” Peter asks, stealing a stale-looking cookie with a shaky hand. Derek just nods in reply, not really in the mood for small talk. He keeps to himself that his uncle is making him nervous, that he doesn’t know this man and, maybe, he doesn’t want to, either.

There are sounds of people coming down the hall, and Derek sits a little straighter.

The Sheriff comes around the corner, wearing civilian clothes and a tired, stern look on his face. He shakes hands with Peter and Derek, standing up when Miss Morrell comes back with coffee. He seems to notice the fresh flowers and the cookies as well, brows furrowing, but he doesn’t bring it up.

Then there is a crash down the hall. The Sheriff just sighs, and Peter’s mouth stretches into a predatory smirk. An orderly comes around the corner – Brunski – with one of his hands fisting the shirt of a scrawny-looking kid. The kid doesn’t look strong enough to put up a fair fight against anyone, let alone Brunski, yet the man grips the boy’s lanky arm with his other hand. The sheriff stares at the flowers, his mouth a tight line.

“I can walk, ow, I promise, stop, hey, stop–”

“Let go,” Miss Morrell says, her tone lacking her usual warmth and professionalism.  Her eyes seem cold as she stares at Brunski, and she puts a hand on the boy’s shoulder – lightly, barely there – and guides him without problem to the unoccupied chair.  “Now, if Mr. Brunski would be kind to escort Wilma to her room.”

The orderly does so, muttering something under his breath and throwing the boy ugly looks.

“Hi, fuck-face,” the boy spits out at Peter, and both Derek and the Sheriff practically flinches.

“Hi honey,” Peter replies, teeth showing as he fakes a pleasant smile. “Did you miss me, or did Brunski keep you company?”

The Stilinski boy – Stiles – makes a move to get up from his chair, skeleton-like arms reaching for Peter’s face, but his father is faster and grabs his shirt to drag him down in his seat again. Miss Morrell doesn’t look impressed, or shocked, and Derek wishes that he could sink through the floor. This is nothing but awful, he decides, and wishes that one of his sisters could be here with him.

He stares at the boy, finding himself uncomfortable and bothered by what he sees. Stiles crosses his long arms, big eyes staring at Peter. Derek would like to say that the boy’s eyes are a warm brown, but the way they are staring at his uncle is nothing but mean and cold. He looks a little hysterical, body unmoving but jittery at the same time; his attention seems to be everywhere at once and he doesn’t seem nice or sane.

Miss Morrell is talking, only interrupted by Peter’s scoffing and Stiles’ cackle of a laugh. She powers through their interruptions, explaining to them that in order for the living environment to stay comfortable, the hostile tension between these two patients needs to be cleared by apologies on both ends. The Sheriff doesn’t seem to be aware of how his kid his apparently not listening, engaging in a staring competition with Peter, and Derek can’t find it in him to care.

Instead, Derek finds himself disturbingly attracted to the boy’s pale face – the sharp cheekbones, the dotted moles, that pink, big mouth and angry posture. The boy is clearly in here for a reason, but there is something so raw about him that Derek wants. While the boy must be older than twenty, he is lanky and vicious in his movements; and there is something so angry and sexual in the way he just is, and Derek wants it all.

“This is a waste of your time, dad,” Stiles says, his big eyes never leaving Peters. Derek can tell that his uncle is amused by the Stilinski boy’s presence, but there is something under that composed smile of Peter’s that makes Derek’s skin crawl. “You can go home.”

Miss Morrell puts her cup back on the table, saying, “Stiles. We talked about this. It is important that your father is present.”

Stiles sends her a look, almost as unreadable as one of Morrell’s customary searching eyes. Derek thinks of the newspapers, the ones with pictures of a kid with a buzz-cut and headlines about Beacon Hill’s wonder child, about his high IQ and achievements with something mathematical that Derek doesn’t understand. Somehow, the intellectual vibe coming from the boy is intimidating and intriguing.  

“Uncle,” Derek says, forcing himself to look away from the Sheriff’s boy. “Come on.”

Peter’s smile drops, and a deep sigh comes before he announces, “I am truly sorry about this misunderstanding. Hopefully, we can all learn something from this and move on to peace and understanding.”

The apology is soaked with sarcasm, but no one says anything. Instead, Stiles gives an equally deep sigh, muttering, “I, also, am sorry about this. Had I known about my ability to raise comatose patients to consciousness, I would have offered my services long ago.”

“Son–” the Sheriff starts, but he is interrupted by Peter’s loud laughter.

Peter laughs, a melodic sound that sounds off to Derek’s ears. It’s a cold, detached sound that makes his skin crawl, nothing like the laugh of his uncle before the fire. Before anyone can say anything, Stiles suddenly joins in. His laughter is far from melodic or pleasant, too loud and too hysterical, but Derek can tell that it’s just as humorless and disconnected as his uncle’s. 


End file.
